Do you depend on your computer for your living? If so, I'm sure you've thought long and hard about which hardware and software to use. I'd like to explain why I use generic "white boxes" running open source software. These give me a platform I rely on for 100% availability. They also provide a low-cost solution with excellent security and privacy.

Well you don't know much about LAMP development then. What developers would like to use and what they build against for business reasons are two entirely different things. CENT/RHEL is the standard for web servers and going outside it increases the conflict risk. That means higher support costs.

Again don't get defensive since all these annoying dependencies benefit Linux when it comes to web servers. It creates inertia and discourages stepping outside the norm.

Maybe RHEL is the standard in Linux servers, but their long term release is not the best choice for all the packages that form the RHEL distribution. Yes, a LTS Kernel/Core packages mean a stable system, but why I want backported patches to all the web apps it provides. They don't even trust that system on their own servers. For example, check in RHEL/CENTOS repository which version of Bugzilla they have available for install. I'm sure they don't have the last one, which in fact is the one currently running on their own bug tracking server. https://bugzilla.redhat.com/

Also (and sorry if I get you down of that cloud), (1) Developers test against the upstream packages, that's why a package said it requires at least X.Y version, and (2) Who told you upstream developers user RHEL in the first place. They usually use more lean and clean distributions (the lest fat, the better).

Maybe RHEL is the standard in Linux servers, but their long term release is not the best choice for all the packages that form the RHEL distribution.

I think you and others here have taken my criticism as an attack on all non-RHEL distros.

RHEL/CENT is the top choice for web hosts and the best choice for low conflict risk for lamp servers. That doesn't make it the best distro by any means and in fact I haven't met anyone that actually likes it. RHEL is like the Windows 98 of Linux Distros. It's a safe choice for compatibility and support but it didn't win the top spot through technical merit.

Who told you upstream developers user RHEL in the first place. They usually use more lean and clean distributions (the lest fat, the better).

I'm talking about the commercial LAMP industry, not Linux developers in general. That industry targets the most common environment which is RHEL/CENT.